Les Sapeurs

Sapeur comes from la SAPE, short for Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes, or the Society of Tastemakers and Elegant People. The SAPE, like any club, has rules of conduct and of dress; it’s centered around Brazzaville and Kinshasa, the adjacent capitals of the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo, respectively.

This isn’t a new subculture: the style of dress which the sapeurs imitate is that of the French and Belgian colonists who seized control over the Congo during the 1880s. (via Jezebel)

Surely it’s more colourful than the Belgian colonists?

Get the book via Amazon. It’s already on my wishlist seeing as I’m broke once again 😀

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I enjoy the beauty of vain trifles – so they seem. Of fashion, of books because they do more than keep us warm (or terribly cold). And I might muse and mutter about it on this blog, part of the internet which has become alienating and often terrifying; who listens in this chaos? I’m just trying to keep warm.